Technically speaking, The New Game of Death isn’t a Shaw Brothers movie, and it really shouldn’t be a part of my review series. The Shaw Brothers picked up various films for distribution on occasion, so this is probably what happened with The New Game of Death, although I can’t find any real info to support that. In any case, it was the only film produced by the Yu-Yun Film Co., somewhere along the line Shaw Brothers got the rights to the film, and then when Celestial Pictures remastered the Shaw catalog and released them on Region 3 DVDs they gave The New Game of Death the same treatment. Given this circumstantial chance to check out an early Bruceploitation film in its raw, original form — it was edited and released in the US as Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death — I just had to take it.

The New Game of Death opens with Bruce Li playing himself (I think), picnicking with his fiance and practicing martial arts. A film producer approaches him and asks him to help complete Bruce Lee’s unfinished film The Game of Death. Bruce Li doesn’t know if he should do it because it’ll postpone his marriage, but of course he accepts, and it doesn’t matter anyway because once the movie-within-a-movie starts, we never go back to this frame story. Once he agrees, the producer sits him down to screen the film they have so far… which oddly stars Bruce Li instead of Bruce Lee, and is apparently complete! Logic has never been Bruceploitation’s strong suit. 🙂

Out of the hundreds of films released by the Shaw Brothers, only a few were not remastered and released to DVD by Celestial. The Escaper is one such film, but after many searches I was finally able to source a copy. It was without subtitles, but in such cases one doesn’t have the leeway to be picky. And as it turns out, The Escaper is still fairly easy to understand without the finer story points that dialogue would bring.

Obviously, I can’t give a real synopsis of what this film is about, and since it’s so rare I can’t find one anywhere else on the net either. So here goes nothin’! The Escaper opens in prison. A group of three inmates mount a daring escape attempt, but they are quickly thwarted by a badass guard with a whip and locked back in their communal cell. Not for long, though, as another guard comes to them with a basket containing a rope and a cell door key. He appears to make some kind of deal with the inmates, and before you know it he’s distracting the other guard so the inmates (who become the film’s heroes) can use the provided tools to make their escape… this time for good.